Satellite Communications: Internet Challenges and Low-latency Applications

This paper analyzes several mitigation strategies and techniques that could enable delay sensitive applications to work properly over satellite IP networks. A study is conducted on different satellite classes (GEO, MEO and LEO) and the analysis of the current solutions for real-time interactive appli-cations is performed. The great distance from Earth results in an important RTT, which is the main aspect to consider for real-time interactive applications. To date, the multi-layered architecture seems to be the best way to go, since it overcomes the drawbacks of the single layer approaches. This, in turn, creates traffic balancing and quality of service concerns that are also discussed according to the proposed solutions.